good bones
by metacognitive
Summary: "You're a good man, Chief Sokka," Tonraq says. Sokka laughs. "I will be," he tells them, "I promise you that."


the ocean eats and eats / at the sand and still hungers

leila chatti, "fasting in tunis"

* * *

The woman who delivers Sokka is a waterbender. Before she is taken away—the second-to-last raid, dead in captivity before he ever leaves his home—she tells his father that he has the spirit of a warrior. Her name is Yiqin.

He comes upon her once, as a child. She is not unfamiliar; even before the men leave, the village is small. She's older than his father, hair a deep black that Sokka has never seen before, a single streak of gray braided over the side of her face. When she looks at him, he finds himself pinned. Her eyes are dark, blue like the ocean that carves out the horizon. When she smiles, she has dimples.

"Sokka," she says, her voice warm and soothing. She reminds him of his mother. In her hands are a knife and a fish. Sokka thinks that soon, he will be the one to help feed the village. "How are you?"

She always speaks this way, asking the children of the village after their chores, their health, their happiness. Speaks to them as if they were little adults. Sokka likes it.

"I'm good, Master Yiqin," he says, and she laughs a little.

"No need for formality," she says. At six, or seven, or however old he was in this moment, Sokka appreciated the reminder. He watches, instead, as she presses the knife against the fish, scraping it upwards towards the head. Scales flake off, spilling from her hands like snow, her movements practiced and methodical. She looks up when she's done, knife poised over its gills, eyes staring at them both. She smiles again. Asks him, "Have they taught you to clean fish?"

"No," he says. He's too young for knives still, his father says. He plays at foraging with the other boys, or watches from the edge of the village while the men trudge away, eager for the hunt. Soon, Sokka thinks, he'll be allowed to join them, at the very least to fish during the long summer days. His father has taken him a few times, sat at the edge of the water and taught him, but sitting still can be a challenge, sometimes. But he would like to help feed the tribe. One day he will take over for his father, and though it's far away, he hopes to be as good a leader as Hakoda clearly is.

"Some call it women's work," she tells him, and motions him closer. He takes a seat next to her, the knife slicing easily through flesh. "But I think it foolish to divide things like that." She fixes him with a careful look. "If you are lost in a snowstorm, who will feed you? Who will make your fire? Better to learn all you can."

She tilts her head at him. He watches her—the dimple, the streak of gray, her eyes dark as the sea.

"There is no such thing as woman's work," she tells him. It's a lesson he forgets, but he learns it, eventually.

* * *

Before he relocates to Republic City for good, he lives, for a little while, on Kyoshi Island. This is in the years after the war, when things have finally settled. He's still young, even if he doesn't feel that way, and it's the first time he lives, alone, with a woman who isn't his blood.

It's far different than the way they have lived before, the constant travel, the bodies curled together for warmth on the nights that were rougher than others. At night their bodies fit together, in dream and sleep alike. They grow together this way, Suki's hair growing long and Sokka relearning to let his guard down.

Besides this, though, he learns what it means to keep a home. While a warrior in his own right, the people of the island don't desire his expertise the way they do Suki's. Sometimes, he goes with her to the dojo and watches her teach the newest generation _tessenjutsu _. He admires her more every day, a feat he perhaps didn't think possible before they came home to Kyoshi. It settles, unnaturally at first, but soon Sokka thinks of this island as home and not the South Pole.

When he realizes it, it stings. His grandmother is gone by this point, his father there without either of his children. Katara and Aang have established a new home in Republic City; Toph still tours the Earth Kingdom, training new students, and sometimes gifts arrive by ferry for Sokka and Suki: painted fans, statues, leather gloves and boots. She sends a jade pendant that Sokka fastens around Suki's neck, their eyes meeting in the mirror.

"Maybe we should track her down," Suki says, and smiles when he agrees.

Their home is not the one Suki was raised in, where her widowed mother lives still. They fill it slowly; Sokka does odd jobs around the village, accepts payment in whatever form it's offered. Their walls end up lined in tapestries and mirrors alike, paintings o Kyoshi in every room and knick knacks in the corners. He carves a table for them, their names hitched one over another, Sokka's hands rough and calloused by the end of it.

Sokka learns to cook in this home. Learns to cook _well _. Keeps the rooms clean, prepared for guests, whether it's just Suki coming home, or a gaggle of young girls who watch her like she's put the stars in the sky for them. He hangs old wanted posters, head thrown back in laughter with Aang when he and Katara come to visit. Neither woman finds it funny, but beneath their twin looks of exasperation he watches the corners of their mouth curl.

On Kyoshi Island, he learns to breathe again. To build a home again. To love Suki and his life without worrying about it being taken away.

* * *

When Katara tells him she's pregnant, he cries.

Republic City has been his home for less than a year. Toph tells him to be less obvious about his copying her, but they both know he's there because Katara asked. The Council they've put together is tremulous, the hold that anyone has on the city non-existent. There's no order, no one trying with the kind of effort it needs. Republic City needs not authoritarianism but a loving hand, like the familiarity that Toph offered Zuko all those years ago, when no one but her could trust him.

He asks Katara why they've offered Toph a police position.

"We've been breaking laws since she was twelve," he says, and Katara rolls her eyes. Her face is round from pregnancy already, her eyes bright and lively. They're slicing some root for dinner; she's switched to vegetarian meals now, and Sokka knows it's out of hope for an airbender. He has some concerns he's too afraid to bring up with Aang—mostly, they center around babies left to float away, and he's sure expressing this will end up with someone laughing in his face.

If they were ten or twenty years younger, she probably wouldn't let him help her with the meal. But Suki's praises hold more weight than ever, no matter that she's on Kyoshi with no intention of leaving. Sokka likes to tell them that any grown man should know how to cook, and it usually results in eyerolls all around, at least until Aang starts waxing poetic about some meal or another he's recreated to minimal success.

In response to his question, Katara says, "She's good with power, don't you think?"

"Do you remember the Melon Lord play-through?"

Katara pops a bacui berry into her mouth, chews thoughtfully. "She wouldn't let our hard work go to ruin," she says, after, "not if it meant tarnishing her good name."

"She used to build a statue of herself in every village we visited," he says, but steals a berry from her and lets the conversation lie. He asks instead, "What are you going to name Junior, anyway?"

"Not that," she says. Her tone is wry. As they've grown older, and lived farther apart, they've come to stop arguing. Even when they were on the run from the Fire Nation, too many enemies at their heels to keep track of, bickering came easy. It felt nearly normal, sometimes, like they were still at Gran Gran's knee, awaiting their father's return.

They may tease each other now, but Sokka has no problem admitting that Katara is one of his best friends, sister or not. They understand each other beyond what the war-bonds created among the rest of their crew. Living in the same city again is a welcome change, and Sokka finds himself on Air Temple Island for visits on any day of the week, sometimes for dinner and sometimes not.

Katara tells him, tone slipping into something more delicate, fragile like the words she says hurt her, "I wanted to ask you, actually, if it was alright if we used Kya. For a girl."

"Oh," Sokka says. He's never put much thought into having children. Suki's never wanted any, content and more than pleased with the responsibilities that Kyoshi Island has always had for her. He's never seen himself as someone's father. Son, brother, partner—yes. Soon, he'll be an uncle. But he doesn't think fatherhood is in the cards for him. It's kind of Katara to ask, though. "No," he tells her, "go ahead. Use whatever name you want."

"Are you sure?" His sister's so prone to worry; he wonders if it's his fault, for not protecting her better during the war. If she knew he thought that, sometimes, she'd try to drown him. He's smart enough not to admit it. "I figured that, by now, you and Suki might…"

"We're not even married," he says. He asked her, once, if she would say yes. If that was something she wanted. They were in bed, on the edge of sleep, Suki's hair over his chest, their skin warm together. She told him this life alone was enough.

Sokka, thousands of miles from her now, thinks it was a good answer.

"Alright," Katara tells him. When she smiles, he sees their mother.

* * *

Lin Beifong looks more like her grandmother than her mother. Sokka loves the little girl so wholeheartedly it doesn't really matter.

"Uncle Sokka!" she says, launching herself into his arms when he walks into the Beifong home, "you're here!"

"I told you he'd be here for dinner," he hears Toph say. The house is fragrant already, and when he catches sight of her Toph is smiling.

He squeezes Lin close, says, "When have I ever broke a promise to you?"

"Never," she says, beaming, and Sokka's heart hurts, just a little bit. Like he had with Katara's three announcements, he cried the day he found out about Toph. Aang had let the news slip, and soon enough Sokka found himself at the Police Chief's doorstep, tears escaping him already. Toph had laughed in his face and then expertly side-stepped every question he had about Lin's father, who he had known in theory, having never met him in person.

Nearly five years later, Lin wants for nearly nothing. Sometimes, Toph tells him, she asks about the father she'll never know. Toph insists she has things under control, and Sokka regularly reminds her that she doesn't have to. Sokka's never yearned for fatherhood, but looking at the Beifong girls, he imagines there's a world where he might have.

"What's the agenda for today?" he asks Lin. She tilts her head, thinks for a long moment. He hears Toph laugh to herself, and he grins, even if she can't tell.

"Let's playa game. You can be a bad guy," she tells him, "and I'll be Mom."

"So I'm gonna lose, huh," he says, and when she smiles it's toothy.

"Yup," she says, and soon enough proves them both right.

"Sad," Toph says, after, leaning in the doorway to the kitchen, house filled now with what smells like _geng _. Sokka's stomach growls, but so does Lin's, so he ignores the smirk on Toph's face. "You two ready to eat?"

Lin says yes, doesn't have to be asked twice to wash her hands. Sokka says, "I could have brought something," like he hasn't before, like him coming over for dinner isn't the standard. He steps close to Toph, hands on her hips, and her expression softens.

"Sokka," she says, warning.

"It's fine," he says, "lemme look at you."

"Ugh," she says, but there's that fondness that's been coming his way for years, the soft curve of her mouth inviting even if he won't kiss her, not now. "How's the Council?"

"Boring," he says, "I'd rather be fighting crime."

"You used to say I was a traitor," she says, amused. He reaches up, smooths her hair back, let loose on her day off. She's in loungewear, and from the state of the living area, it's clear today's been a day for Lin, just her and her mother and now Sokka entertaining themselves within the comfort of their home. The best kind of day, in Sokka's opinion. It's what children deserve.

It's been decades, but he still remembers all of them on the run, hustling men on the streets, the open glee in Toph's face when they would successfully pull a prank. The Greatest Earthbender in the World: a title that was well-earned. Sokka has seen her in action more times than he can count; like he was with Suki, he finds himself awed every time.

But part of him still smarts—they might have survived the war, might have orchestrated the victory, but to think that Toph at twelve was in the thick of it? He thinks of his sister's children, the way their eyes shine, the joy in their laughter, and aches to think of the things that were lost during those one hundred years. The scars he's catalogued on others, the ones they've traced on him.

"We used to fix dice games," he tells her, "now you track down criminals and play at the park with Lin."

"_ We _play at the park with Lin," she corrects him. He waits until Lin's back is turned to kiss her mother.

"Yeah," he says, grinning at the way she flushes, "but I'm not complaining."

* * *

Before everything ends, Sokka meets the new Avatar.

His work has always pulled him to various corners of the world; it's why, despite the truth, he finds it hard to say he's raised any children, let alone the one that's his. He thinks he let everyone down with that one.

With Korra, he feels allowed to admit it. Allowed to mourn it, but allowed to live in the aftermath. Korra at five reminds him of Lin, before the reality of police work made her more serious than Sokka and Toph liked. She's got more energy than Sokka, sixty-odd years old, can keep up with, sometimes, but he's always loved children, always been good with them—at least in the short-term.

He won't live long enough to see her sequestered away to a compound, or even master any elements, but he watches her begin to learn. He calls himself an old man, but he's still a fighter, and he still enjoys watching lessons. Though he teases Katara, back in the South Pole after years away, about her skills with magic water, he accompanies her during their meetings, sits with Tonraq and Senna while they discuss the village they've turned into a city.

"I haven't been to the North Pole in years," he tells them, "not since before you arrived, probably, but it was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen."

"Maybe," Tonraq says. Though he doesn't show it, his exile still burns brightly, no matter that his brother has attempted to bridge the gap since the discovery of the new Avatar. Katara thinks it foolish, and has said so. Sokka thinks of all the things he has done to keep her alive, to keep her safe, and thinks that Unalaq's actions—all of them, past and present—should be considered carefully. That he's proven right isn't revealed until much, much later.

He says, instead of this, "Maybe."

He thinks of how Kyoshi Island looked forty years before, of Gaoling the few times Toph brought the girls home. Ba Sing Se, when they first arrived, seemed like a promised land, and look at how that turned out. The North Pole, too, was like that—beautiful until it wasn't, Yue before she was the moon. When he looks up at the sky, most nights, he's grateful to have had the luck in love that he's had. He cherishes every moment, good and bad, that the women in his life have given him.

He says to Senna, "Would you ever leave?"

"Leave?" she says, "The South Pole, you mean? I don't think so."

"I used to think the same," he says, "or that I'd only leave to fight." He thinks of his father's face, the day his fleet left. Of riding Appa to save Aang from Zuko, before he was their friend. The rush of that first flight, the way they wandered across the world trying to make something of themselves.

"Are you glad?" Senna asks. She's a young mother, not even in her thirties yet. "You've seen so much."

"I have," he says. "But sometimes I forget. Sometimes I'm six again, or seven. Learning how to descale a fish. Learning how to be a man."

"You're a good man, Chief Sokka," Tonraq says.

Sokka laughs. "I will be," he tells them, "I promise you that."


End file.
